Anatomy of Murder - Race Against Time (Beverly Carter)

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

There's a race against the clock after it's learned that a local realtor has been abducted after a house showing. The plot that took her life is stunning, in the very worst of ways. For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/ Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

Carlos, Beverly, I just want to let you know I'm okay. I haven't been hurt. Just do what he says and please don't call the police. If you call the police, they can be bad. Just want you to know I love you very much. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. Nobody wants to feel unsafe in the workplace, and nobody should. But today's case is one in which a woman became a victim simply for trying to do her job.

50-year-old Beverly Carter was a successful realtor in Little Rock, Arkansas, a capital city with a small-town feel. It's where she and her husband, Carl, raised three children and where she felt safe as a realtor. It was a town that she knew like the back of her hand. It's a small place. The entire county is probably half a million people. I've grown up here and it's home to me. That's Jeffrey Allison. He's currently a homicide detective with the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office in Little Rock.

But after high school and a stint in the Army, he was just another local kid trying to make his way in the world. And the story of how he got into law enforcement is too good not to mention. I got pulled over one night a long time ago. I didn't have a tag on my truck that I just purchased. We just started talking and, you know, I asked him about being a police officer. They're in a small town. He said, you know, I think we're hiring, so why don't you come talk to the chief?

So I went the next day and talked to the chief, and they offered me a job. And so I took it, and I've been doing it ever since. It's a job that kept him closely tied to the community, and someone whose job as a detective would often result in close personal relationships with the families he assisted. Another person that people tend to forge strong relationships with, the person responsible for finding them a home. They're a realtor, and no one knew the importance of that relationship better than Beverly Carter. Beverly was warm, she was charismatic, and most importantly, people trusted her.

And after many years in the business, she was recognizable with her smiling face on billboards and advertisements all across town. She was known as a very good realtor. She won several awards in her office for top sales. I think she had belonged to the $1 million club. On the afternoon of September 25th, 2014, Beverly was summoning all of that charm and positivity for a meeting with two new potential clients. She received a call of a couple looking to buy a house and pay cash for it and wanted to look at the house on Old River Road. This was in a suburban area around seven miles outside of the city.

The meeting was set for early evening, the time many people get off of work, so a pretty normal time to show a house. Realtors that work in your office, you know, they said that it's not odd. They've shown houses at various hours of the day and night. It just all depends on how bad you want to make a sale. And, you know, Scott, I don't think, but more often women, they are often going alone into these homes and meeting strangers. Yeah, I could see a reason to be really concerned. Potentially two people who have never met.

It's in a private setting and here it's a home. And in most cases, without even having an opportunity to vet that potential customer. So there could be real reasons for concern here. As a result, they try to take precautions. If it's a couple, they want to meet couples and make sure the husband and wife are there or they take another realtor with them. They did say that Beverly spoke with the man and wife, and they assured her that they would both be there.

So Beverly had left the office to go show them that house. After all, Beverly was a pro, and she had built her entire career on trust. Not only that, the house was practically in her backyard since she and her husband Carl lived just a couple miles away. She called Carl and told him that she was going to show the house over there and that when she left, she would pick up dinner. And I believe that was around four o'clock. So she goes out there, does her thing. And as the time goes by around nine o'clock, he's been sending her text message and text message and she's not answering. I could clearly see how he would be concerned because he knew how long it would take for her to show a home. He was also expecting her to bring him dinner

and just to never show up and never call. And of course, it always depends on the relationship, you know, how often people are in touch. But in today's digital age, there usually would have been a text or a call. And one of Beverly's adult sons, Carl Jr., well, he was trying to get a hold of her too, but he couldn't contact her either. He tried to reassure his dad that she's probably just working. That's the life of the realtor. But of course, Beverly's husband, Carl, was going to double check. After all, like most realtors, Beverly lived on her phone and it just wasn't like her not to be in touch. He decides that he's going to drive over to the house. When he got there, Beverly's car was parked outside.

Her purse was still in the passenger seat. But when he went inside the house to try to find her, it was eerily quiet and completely empty. Something in his gut tells him that there is something very wrong. So Beverly's husband picks up the phone and dials his son, who was already seriously concerned. Carl tells him, hey, you know what, it's time to call 911. The next morning was when Jeff got involved. I got called in early that morning on the Friday the 26th. I was told that a female realtor had shown a house to someone

and family can't make contact with her since. Everything starts going through your mind. What could it be? Could she have led a double life? Could she be off having drinks with friends? Could she be having an affair? Beverly's family was at the house when Detective Jeff Allison arrives. Her car was parked out front and her purse, as Adesiga mentioned, was still in her car. It had been approximately 18 hours since anyone had heard from her.

Experience told him that the first clues to her whereabouts were probably inside that car. The front passenger seat was a Spower Ring notebook laying there. It had writing on it. The page had three different addresses, and one of them was the Old River Road address. And there was an email address underneath that, and then a phone number. Presumably, there would have been contact information for the clients that Beverly was supposed to meet at this location. Matching that up with a name would take some time. So in the meantime, Jeff began a careful inspection of the property. And at this point,

Beverly was considered missing. But you never know where you may encounter clues to her whereabouts or to the possibility that she may be in distress or even in imminent danger. Then I went to the house and at the front of the house at the door, you could tell that there was a tire track that was from the driveway across a little area of grass. And it looked like it backed up to the front door. The inside of the house was totally empty. It was also pretty dusty. It had been on the market for a while. Some of the dust was disturbed, probably from touring the home. But Jeff noticed that one place was different from the rest.

At the bottom of the stairs was a big area, probably a 10 by 10 area. The dust was just completely disturbed. It looked like somebody had rolled around on the ground. And I found this so interesting because it is the kind of detail that only a detective may have noticed. Between this and the tire tracks outside, things were starting to look a little suspicious. Jeff talked to a neighbor and the neighbor was able to give him some eye-opening information. The neighbor recalled looking out of the window and seeing a black car pulled up next to Beverly's car around the time of her scheduled appointment. She looked back a few minutes later at the black car had backed to the front door, obviously where the tire track came from that I saw. And there was a tall,

slender white male with short brown hair standing out beside the car. Jeff had a description of the car, the appearance, and even possibly the phone number of likely the last person to have seen Beverly Carter. And with the tire tracks and the telling footprints inside this dusty house, he also had his suspicions that this person had something to do with her disappearance. Beverly's family was bracing themselves for bad news when all of a sudden, Carl's phone sprang to life. I was explaining to them what I was fixing to do and my next step, and all of a sudden, text messages started coming in. The texts Carl was receiving were from Beverly.

It was responding to all the previous texts and calls that he had sent. And the text said, sorry, phone's been dead. I'm out having drinks with friends. But for Beverly's family, the text raised more questions than it would answer. According to them, Beverly wasn't a drinker, but even if she was, everyone that she could have been out with was there at the scene. Plus, a woman's not usually going to leave her car and her purse with her money and credit cards behind when she goes out. None of it made any sense. It's kind of, you know what, we've got something more here. So at that point is when we started doing an exigent circumstance phone ping on her phone. When law enforcement requests a phone location, they ping it through the carrier and the carrier signals the phone to give it a

response, which a nearby tower detects. The network computes the phone's location using the response signal, giving them a full triangulation. And Anastasia, as you know, this can be powerful evidence to pinpoint a specific phone at a specific time at a location. And Jeff did get information back from his request. From that, it showed her arriving at the house there on Old River Road, showed her leaving the house, and showed her phone was going down the interstate. And then the phone just went off.

The data seems to confirm her family's worst fear. At that point, we were pretty sure that there's some kind of foul play. She'd been abducted. We felt like she was out there somewhere and we needed to find her. Police and search parties raced to what they believed was Beverly's last known location. One of the pings, they were able to get her phone stopped just south of Little Rock at a commuter lot. A commuter lot is something outside the interstate, obviously, that people park at and they commute. And that phone was there for probably 20, 25 minutes.

But still, there was no sign of Beverly. With evidence mounting that Beverly may have met with foul play, Jeff began to build his victimology. And that included learning more about anyone that may have had any motive to target her. As we all know, that also means turning a critical eye onto Beverly's husband, Carl. About this time, Jeff interviewed her husband, Carl, a little more closely. Anything like this, first thing you want to look at is always a spouse. So I didn't know if they were that bad off that they needed money.

Is this going to be an insurance thing? He was a beneficiary for her and vice versa for him. You look at that and it rises to your head. After speaking with Carl, Jeff found that they were in some financial trouble and that they'd had domestic problems in the past. But since then, there had not been any additional issues. And yes, like in many long marriages, Beverly and Carl had experienced their rough patches, but absolutely nothing that pointed towards a motive to hurt his own wife. He was pretty straightforward and answered my questions and seemed to be very

honest about everything. He was genuinely worried. Any type of suspicion about Carl was quickly outweighed by another discovery. Thanks to some digital sleuthing, they finally had a name to go with the email and phone number written in Beverly's notebook. We got the IP address on the email. We found out that that telephone number that was written down was actually a spoof number, which was an application that you can download on your phone. But in order to have that number, you have to send a subpoena to the app company. And we were able to obtain subscriber information and find out exactly who it was issued to.

It was a name that nobody knew at this point. But it wasn't a man's name like you may think it would be in these cases. It was a woman. Crystal Lowry. The name didn't ring a bell with Beverly's family or anyone in her office. But Crystal's husband's name immediately raises alarms. Found out she's married to a guy named Aaron Lewis. Aaron Lewis was a 33-year-old convicted felon with a rap sheet a mile long.

Lewis had been recently fired from his job as a concrete truck driver. And given his background and the ramshackle residence that he and Crystal shared just outside Little Rock, Lewis and Lowry did not fit the profile of one of Beverly's typical clients, which put them squarely at the top of the person of interest lists. We've sent a team over to Seville, the house. Before they get there and everybody gets set up, they see a black car in the driveway. Matches the black car that the neighbor's seen at the house. Tall, slender, white male, short hair comes out, gets in the car. Lewis is a match for the same man seen at the house on Old River Road, but Lewis was not waiting around for them to make sure. He sees the unmarked cars in the neighborhood, so he jumps in the car and he flees.

Lewis's flight spoke volumes to investigators. I already had suspicion, but when he fled, I knew he knew where she was at. I knew that he had taken her. The man last seen with Beverly Carter was attempting to flee police, helping remove their doubt that he'd had something to do with her disappearance. He was going around a 90-degree curve and actually ran off the roadway and went into the ditch and hit a culvert. His face hit the steering wheel, so he was bleeding from his nose. As I pulled up, he was actually crawling out of the driver's side window because the car was sitting on the side.

So he got out and we ended up calling an ambulance for him. And we asked him for his telephone number, asking if we could call his wife for him. Well, he gives us the same phone number that we found on Beverly's phone records, minus one number. So that's when we knew we seized his phone right then. We ran a search warrant for his phone. So Anasiga, when he was originally brought into the hospital, he was not under arrest and he was being brought in for medical treatment. So there would be a reason for an officer to be outside of the room he's being treated, but not really in with him or obviously not having him in custody at that moment.

When they get him back there and start getting him changed out for his MRI, he leaves. He runs out of the hospital, escapes. I believe he still had the IV in his arm. So this is now flight number two, which in the courtroom I'm going to be calling consciousness of guilt. Now, that's only going to get you so far. It is never going to be direct or major evidence of anything. It's not solid proof, but it certainly is helping investigators at least feel like they're on the right track and that they want to find him and investigate him very quickly.

You know, Anasik, I agree with you on that. I mean, normally innocent people, especially injured ones, just don't flee. But he did leave something behind, or more specifically, someone behind. His wife, Crystal. So Jeff goes to speak with her and asks if she'll go down with him to his office. She agrees, comes, gives me a statement, and says that she has no idea anything about Beverly and didn't know what Aaron was into. They were married, but they didn't really get along. They were trying to get a divorce. So she didn't know what he was doing. But the fact that her name was registered to the phone number found in Beverly's notebook told police that she was somehow likely involved and they could not afford to let her go.

They couldn't hold Crystal Lowry on that alone. So Jeff found another way. She had a misdemeanor worn out, unrelated to Beverly. So we arrested her on that. So with Lowry now under arrest, the team turned their attention back to finding Aaron Lewis. Every hour that he was at large was an hour Beverly's life could still be in danger. They give a press conference saying that he had escaped the hospital and we were looking for him. And he was a person of interest in a kidnapping. In this case, it's all about getting Lewis's picture out there. With

Lewis's face literally splashed across the local news at this point, it's only a matter of time before he'd be spotted, which gave investigators a window of opportunity to gather evidence in hopes of supporting charges against him. While they're looking for him, we have a team, me included, that goes over and we do a search on their house. We're still just a few days from when Beverly was last seen, but when someone is missing, as you know, time is everything. Their hope that they find Beverly safe and unharmed, and if not, they at least find clues to her whereabouts.

It's a small house, medium, lower income family house. It's not well kept at all. That's politely put, but the house was a treasure trove of evidence of the couple's criminal activity. We took some skimming equipment. Evidently, he was into skimming credit cards. They go to ATM machines and somehow able to create a fake debit card and be able to draw people's money out. Don't know how they do it, but it is done. So he had that. But it's not exactly related to Beverly. And again, they're searching for anything they can find related to her disappearance.

Eventually, they find something that was game changing. We actually find Beverly's cell phone in their bedroom. Eventually, they find something that was game-changing. We actually find Beverly's cell phone in their bedroom. We were able to match the IMEI from her cell phone records to that phone. I came to the office and immediately started writing arrest warrants for kidnapping. I wrote the kidnapping warrants for both of them, for Erin and Crystal. Crystal Lowry continued to deny knowing anything about Beverly or what Lewis may have been up to. The best hope at this point of finding Beverly depended on finding Aaron Lewis.

That's when we really got his face out in the media. So now everybody around here knows that he's wanted for kidnapping and the disappearance of Beverly Carter. Then, sometime Monday morning, the police station gets a call. The caller then says he had a guy walk out to confirm it was Lewis. But unfortunately, this only tips Lewis off. Aaron noticed him on the phone and looking at him, he took off running. And that's just about the time the officer showed up and they actually chased him. Aaron went into an apartment complex and actually went and jumped off the second story balcony. When he landed, there was an officer standing right there, so they took him into custody. Somehow he wasn't injured.

So this time they get him handcuffed, take him to the station, and put him in an interview room. And, you know, Scott, you have to think about while this is all happening, the clock has never been ticking with more pressure than right now. Because, of course, there's still the possibility that Beverly is alive. You know, just I can imagine, and you would know, like how much pressure there is on the detectives at this point. The mindset of the detective is really important. As you said, it's unknown whether she's alive or being held somewhere against her will or if she's already deceased.

So an important process for the investigator is to get him talking and don't give him a reason to shut down. I introduced myself, let him know that I'm the lead detective. He has read his rights. And the first thing out of his mouth is that if we want to know the information that we want, he needs to be put in a room that has no recorders or no video cameras. He's in our house, number one. So he has no reasonable expectation of privacy. And plus, Arkansas is a one-party state. And really what this comes down to is that certain states are what we call these one-party states, so that only one person on either side of a telephone or a camera, any sort of recording instrument needs to be aware. If it's a two-party state, both sides have to know. If it's a one like here, only one needs to know.

So here, unbeknownst to Lewis, the recording equipment was set up and recording when Jeff sat down and the two began talking. And that's when Lewis makes a shocking confession. He admits to kidnapping her and says that his reason he did is because she was a broker and he and Crystal wanted to get a divorce, but they couldn't afford it. The plan was to kidnap her. They were going to send a photograph of her being kidnapped in the back of the trunk of his vehicle to Carl and demand ransom money from him. But the couple never sent those photographs or any ransom request, which had police questioning his story. He says that if we wanted to know that he's serious, then we need to get his phone and he would show us something.

Here's a part of that actual interview. Well, actually, I'll let you listen to something. And then he says, I'll let you listen to it. Then you'll know that I'm serious. Then I said that you're running out of time. He says if we got his phone, that he would let us listen to something to know that he was serious and his motive for doing it. You know what I'm thinking here, Anasiga, is that he knows that they have him. So he's only thinking about one thing is how is he going to benefit?

And, you know, I would be super concerned about giving him the evidence back, giving that phone back, because in his hand, he could begin to delete what could be valuable evidence, which could tell investigators maybe where Beverly really is at that very moment. That was the exact dilemma that investigators were thinking about. But ultimately, they knew that this was, at that moment, the only hope they had of finding Beverly. So they were going to have to place their bets on at least with this piece of him telling them the truth. So they granted him access to his phone. Typically, we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't give suspect evidence. But if we were able to find her alive, obviously, we were going to do that. So that's what we did.

And Lewis pulls up a recording and plays it for investigators. And we are going to give you a warning at this moment that what you are about to hear you call the police, it's going to be bad. Just let you know I love you very much. She sounded calm, which struck me by surprise. I don't know many people that would be calm if they had been kidnapped, but she was. And she sounded like she was calm was for the benefit of Carl and whoever else was going to hear that voice message. Fortunately, Lewis does hint at Beverly's current location. And more importantly, the recording suggests that Beverly was still alive. And Lewis claimed he was ready to lead police to where she was being held. After his arrest, Lewis pretty quickly told Jeff that Beverly was alive and he promised to take him to her location,

a small town called Cabot, about 45 minutes from Little Rock. The entire ride there, he is in the back seat just telling us everything that happened. He tells me, I picked her because she was a broker. I figured she was going to be rich. So he's telling us how he done it. He got there, walked upstairs. He asked her to take photographs of the bathroom so he could send his wife. He says she turned around, started taking photographs. I pulled out a flashlight taser that I had, and I clicked it. And I told her that you're fixing to have a bad day. I duct taped her, took her downstairs, went outside, got the car, backed it up to the driveway, backed it up to the driveway,

backed it up to the door, and loaded her in the car, and we left. This nearly exactly describes what the neighbor saw. The car backing up to the house, then driving away. It also explains the tire tracks outside of the house. So you have to be hopeful he's telling the truth and it's going to lead you right to Beverly's location. Takes us to an old shed in Cabot. It says that this is the last place she was at. So we go inside, search that entire shed. The shed was immaculate. I mean, it had nothing out of place. You can tell just no one had I mean, it had nothing out of place.

You can tell just no one had been kept in there. She's not there. She's never been there. And I'm furious. So Lewis then says that there is another place that she might be. And he takes the detectives an hour and a half away to now a large abandoned house west of Little Rock. That house is searched. He says that she's in there and we've got her handcuffed to an iron beam. Go in this house, nothing, what he describes, is in there.

So I'm just, I'm curious. This means Lewis has led them to a false location twice. At that point, I knew he's messing with us. He's just leading us on wild goose chases. But there was one other thing that really stuck out to Jeff. Lewis kept referencing they, as in he and they were doing all this together. But according to Lewis, his accomplice was not his wife, Crystal. It was another man he called Trevor.

He even gave a few details about Trevor, that Trevor was in the Air Force, had helped him with his kidnapping, and that he, Trevor, was supposed to stay with Beverly in exchange for $100,000. He was basically saying that Beverly not being where he thought she was, was Trevor's fault. But when police tracked him down, he wasn't in Arkansas at all. He was in Oklahoma with an alibi that made his role in the kidnapping impossible. But he did offer investigators information about Lewis and who he believed was his real partner in crime, his wife, Crystal. He said, I've been to the house once. He said, but they're crazy.

Crystal would have sex with people, and Aaron would hide in the house, videotape it, and then extort them for money. They'll get money any way they can get it. Unfortunately, this left Jeff without information about Beverly. Trevor was a dead lead. Lowry had now claimed innocence, and despite confessing to her kidnapping, Lewis was offering nothing but lies, and the clock was still ticking. Every second Beverly remained missing was torture for her family and friends that desperately wanted her returned home, and their only hope seemed to be in the hands of this proven liar. I've been interviewing him for, let's say, 12 hours.

I mean, it was a long time, back and forth with him. You could ask him a question, and there was no hours. I mean, it was a long time back and forth with him. You could ask him a question and there was no emotion. He had no reaction to anything. And I remember that he got fired from Argos. Argos was the concrete plant where Lewis used to work. He'd been fired from there only about a week or two prior to Beverly going missing. I just thought, let me just ask him about Argos. I said, man, I said, did you take her to Argos? And when I said that, he raised his head up and looked at me. That's the first time that I had a reaction from him in 12 hours. And I knew when I said that and got that reaction, I knew that's where she was at. It was Tuesday, September 30th, four days after Beverly disappeared.

Investigators raced to the Argos facility and began scouring the property for clues, still holding out hope that they would find Beverly alive. A narcotics team also headed out to Argos, and one of the female officers searched the property. She started narrowing in on the property just beyond where the concrete trucks are washed out, close to the woods. She was walking through there searching, and she saw a refrigerator in the woods. So she thought that was kind of strange. She went over to check the refrigerator out and saw that there was nothing to it. It was just an old refrigerator that somebody had thrown out there. So she was walking back and doing like a grid search and she stumbled on something and

that just happened to be Beverly's elbow sticking up out the ground. The grim discovery all but extinguished hope that Beverly was still alive. Brown was real hard out there, so she was covered up entirely except the left elbow. As Beverly's body was being recovered, other officers looked for evidence around the scene. About 60 to 70 yards away, we found one of Beverly's earrings. We found one of her shoes. We found a roll of duct tape. And when Beverly's body was finally pulled out of the ground,

it was covered in the duct tape. She had fluorescent green duct tape with her arms taped behind her back. Her feet were taped together, and she had a mask. Her entire head was wrapped in duct tape with her arms taped behind her back. Her feet were taped together and she had a mask. Her entire head was wrapped in duct tape. She suffocated from the tape. The manner of her death clearly pointed to homicide, which meant that while the search for Beverly was over,

the mission to convict her killer or killers had just begun. Jeff leaves straight from the crime scene to confront Aaron Lewis. I had on a tieback suit and I remember being just filthy and I didn't want to change because I was going to have him brought back over from the jail and I wanted him to see how dirty I was. I took a photograph of Beverly in the grave and I just slammed it down on the table and didn't say anything else. Told him he was going to be charged with capital murder. He just held his head and wouldn't even look up. He knew he was caught. Both Lewis and Lowry were arrested on capital

murder charges. But there were still two lingering questions. How did a kidnapping ransom plot turn to murder? And how exactly was Crystal Lowry involved? That answer would come from Crystal Lowry herself, who tries to save her own skin by testifying against her ex. She said that it was actually her idea to kidnap a broker. He wanted to kidnap somebody, and she said, well, why don't we just kidnap a realtor that's a broker? They've got a lot of money. So they done a Google search and Beverly popped up first thing. She then laid out what can only be described as their sick plan. Lewis then called Beverly and said he and his wife wanted to buy a house and asked to see it. When Beverly asked if his wife was going to be with him, he put his wife on the phone.

And Crystal spoke with Beverly and assured her that she would be with him. But she wasn't. According to Crystal Lowry, after Lewis kidnapped Beverly, he took her to a commuter lot south of Little Rock. That was the same lot where they had pinged her cell phone and he had stayed there with her for about 20 to 25 minutes. He was there taking a photograph of her. He got out, opened the trunk, and took photographs of her inside the trunk and sent those photographs to Crystal. Lowry was supposed to send them to Carl to ask for ransom money,

but this is where things went wrong. While Lowry sent the pictures, Lewis was supposed to take Beverly to an abandoned building in Cabot, but he didn't take her there because a couple days prior, he had gone to check it out and thought someone had been there. Basically, he panicked a bit, and instead of going to Cabot, he brought Beverly back to the house he shared with Crystal Lowry. That really made Crystal mad because he took her inside and put her in the bathroom, and they had medication bottles in there with their names on it.

She had seen their face. So it really upset her. Not only that, but Lewis forgot Beverly's purse in her car, which means they didn't have her debit card. The whole reason for the scheme in the first place. And when Lewis went back, the police were already at the house. When he goes back home, he says, cops are there, can't get the card. She said, well, you're going to have to kill her.

She knows our name. She's in there with our medicine bottles, our names all over them. She's seen our face. You're going to have to kill her. Which means that it was actually Crystal Lowry's idea to kill Beverly. After that, we can piece together what Lewis did next. He goes out and loads her up in Crystal's car, SUV, and he drives her out to Argos. That's when he duct tapes her, makes her walk out there, and then created this duct tape mask and then left her laying there. And he left, went home home and went and got something to eat. And later that night, Lewis and Lowry went to Walmart.

We got surveillance footage showing him going inside. Crystal sends him a text message while he's inside Walmart and says, it's a shovel, idiot. It's not rocket science. Pick one and let's go. He buys the shovel. He and Crystal leave there and go to the grave site. She holds the flashlight for him while he digs the grave. And then they put her in the shovel. He and Crystal leave there and go to the grave site. She holds the flashlight for him while he digs the grave. And then they put her in the grave.

Then they leave and go back home. That was Lowry's story, which may have made for a fairly straightforward murder trial. But Lewis had other plans and a different story entirely. Originally, Aaron Lewis wanted to represent himself in this case. And every person always has the right to represent themselves, but it is definitely not the norm, especially with a case like this that has such high stakes. It certainly complicates things in the courtroom, and everyone really needs to bend over backwards to ensure that everything is

done to make sure the defendant understands. It's all explained to them, sometimes two and three times, so there isn't an issue later. For discovery, we had to give him my case file. Well, my case file was four binders large. I mean, it was a lot of information. So he goes through this case file page for page and takes all the evidence that I've gathered, everything that I'm using against him, and creates his own storyline with that same evidence. But Lewis doesn't save his story for the court. He arranges to have his version of the events posted directly on his Facebook page. So according to him, he and Crystal met Beverly at a strip club in Memphis. And long story short,

the way that she died is sexual intercourse between Beverly and Crystal. And then Aaron takes Beverly and he goes and he buries her. That's his defense. That's what he's saying. So this now completely contrasts with Crystal Lowry's story, as well as so much of the evidence in this case, the tire tracks at the house, the tape found around Beverly, the fact that his number was on Beverly's notepad as a potential client. You know what I think of just thinking about this, you know, if you're when I say you're just thinking about this, you know, if you're a defendant and you're going to offer up an alternative theory of why it could not be you, that you did not commit this crime, I assume you'd want to have theories that make

sense or that are even possible. And I think this was far from it. After facing hurdle after hurdle while representing himself, Lewis was eventually convinced to use an attorney in conjunction with himself during the trial. His attorney tried to get Lewis not to testify for his own good, but Lewis insisted. He had to have known how stupid this defense sounded. I think he's just, that's the kind of person he is. He wanted to be the center of attention. After just 25 short minutes, the jury came back with their verdict. Aaron Lewis was found guilty of the capital murder and kidnapping of Beverly Carter and sentenced on both counts to life in prison.

Lowry had already pled guilty and was sentenced to life, but her sentence was reduced to 30 years because of her cooperation and her testimony. Later, Lewis told reporters that he had kidnapped Beverly simply because she was a woman alone. I mean, the evil that come out of this guy is just, there's no other word for him. He's just evil. To just sidestep here for a moment, at the top of this podcast, we shared a story about how Jeff began his career in law enforcement. Well, here is one more Jeff fact, and it's connected to Beverly's story, and it's actually a bright spot in this dark tale.

Remember the narcotics officer that first spotted Beverly's remains? Well, Jeff didn't know her then, but they got to know each other very well afterwards, and today she's his wife. Her name is Ozzie. I hear she's an AOM fan, so thank you for that. But mostly, Ozzie, we want to thank you for your dedication to public service work. You know, Anastasia, Jeff Allison worked this case until he got answers. And once it was clear that it was a homicide, then he worked it until he had enough evidence to get justice for Beverly. If I had my wish, there wouldn't be any homicides, but that's never going to happen. And the randomness of Beverly being chosen as their victim is something that stays with Jeff to this day.

She was just the first search. Beverly was a true victim, 100% true victim. According to the National Association of Realtors, 68% of realtors are women. And like we saw in this case, sometimes that means that they are meeting their clients alone. Beverly's son, Carl Jr., might have a solution. After Beverly's death, he created the Beverly Carter Foundation to try to help realtors stay safe on the job. He goes around and speaks to different realtors on realtor safety and things that they may be able to do differently. And one of the things created by a company called Invisaware and the Beverly Carter Foundation is basically a wearable device that can help realtors alert others to an emergency if necessary.

I would be remiss, based on my experience, if I couldn't offer some other guidance and let me offer five top things you can do if you're a realtor or any business where you find yourself in a private space with an unknown potential client pre-screening before meeting with any clients ensure you have as much information about them and even ask for a copy of their ID before you meet and also tell your friends and colleagues about your schedule, specifically where you're going to be and who you're going to be meeting with. And if it's an open house, establish some type of safety protocol. Keep all the exits unlocked and you may consider also having a colleague or an assistant present with you. And most importantly, trust your instincts. If something

feels off or you feel unsafe about a situation, trust those instincts and leave immediately. It's better to be safe than sorry, and any genuine client will understand that you feel uncomfortable with the situation. And last, consider carrying some type of self-defense tool like pepper spray. Obviously learn how to use it effectively, but any basic self-defense tool like pepper spray. Obviously, learn how to use it effectively, but any basic self-defense training can be invaluable in those unexpected potential situations.

When I first read about what happened to Beverly, it sounded like a movie plot, a terrible and ridiculous scheme that while murderous couldn't possibly be true. A couple picks a random person to kidnap and hold for ransom in hopes of getting rich and then killing their victim when they think that she knows who they are.

However, this far-fetched scheme was unfortunately, sadly, and inhumanely very, very true. Beverly's son told jurors during the sentencing phase that the family was brutalized by Lewis's claims that this crime involved some type of consensual sex, trying to smear her name and her reputation. The defense questioning the relationship between Beverly and her husband, Carl, a marriage at that time over 35 years. In what could be seen as an ironic twist, it would be Lewis's own wife who would be the prime witness against him for the prosecution, telling jurors that Lewis saw Beverly Carter as a payday.

And that's about it. Beverly Carter was a mom, a grandmom, a wife, a valued coworker and a friend. Her accomplishments, kindness, and love will live on in the hearts of those that knew her. Her legacy will also be through the work of her son as he tries to make sure that what happened to his mom doesn't happen to anyone else ever again. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original

produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers is executive producer. This episode was researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa, Megan Hayward, and Philjean Grande. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?